Gallant Vows Ongoing Action if Iran Restarts Nuclear Program

In a powerful and direct message, former Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant issued a stark warning to Iranian Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei: abandon your war against Israel or face repeated and crushing retaliation.

In a letter released Thursday, Gallant laid bare the scope and impact of Israel’s recent military operations and offered a rare glimpse into the strategic doctrine that guided the Jewish state through its June 2025 campaign Operation Rising Lion a mission that decimated Iran’s decades-old “Ring of Fire.”

“What unfolded in June 2025 was not merely a military campaign. It was the strategic collapse of a system you spent four decades constructing,” Gallant wrote, referencing the Iranian-backed network of proxies surrounding Israel from Hamas in Gaza to Hezbollah in Lebanon and the Houthis in Yemen.

Gallant detailed how, under his leadership, Israel dismantled the core elements of this regional threat architecture: Hamas leadership was decimated, Hezbollah’s arsenals were destroyed, Syria’s regime was upended, and Iran’s nuclear infrastructure was devastated by precision strikes that reached deep into Tehran itself.

“Your nuclear program and infrastructure were set back by years. Your shield, long advertised, failed to protect,” Gallant declared.

But the letter was more than a victory lap. It was a warning and a challenge. Gallant made clear that while the physical destruction was significant, the intelligence gathered was even more consequential. “We see everything. We hear everything. We are everywhere,” he wrote. “We knew your schedules. Your sites. Your communications. Your blind spots. In more ways than one, we knew more about you than you knew about yourselves.”

Addressing Iran’s future ambitions, Gallant warned Khamenei not to attempt a revival of the country’s nuclear weapons program. “Hope is not a strategy,” he wrote. “Would you risk your future and your country's on a race you cannot conceal and are unlikely to finish?”

Gallant’s message underscored how much the Middle East has changed since October 7. With Hamas neutralized, Assad gone, Hezbollah’s leadership buried, and Gulf states turning against Iran, Israel stands more secure and more prepared than ever.

He concluded with a chilling promise: “But what you build, we will likely see. What we see, we will strike. And what we strike, you will struggle to replace.”

In what he called a “defining moment,” Gallant gave Iran a choice: continue a futile war of aggression or focus on building a better future for its own people.

“But if you choose wrong again,” he warned, “we will be there, waiting.”

Israel’s resolve is clear: threats will be met with precision, power, and persistence. The message from Gallant could not be more direct never again means every time.

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